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The Test Drive: Chhandomay on Sun Product Reviews

Wednesday Nov 18, 2009

1. Using
Graphs to Build Your Own Ruby Pattern Matcher
– justinbozonier.posterous.com, 11/9
Justin Bozonier wrote
about using dynamic programming to implement a string matching
algorithm. He said for the IDE he tried using RadRails, RubyMine,
and NetBeans, and said “ultimately I chose NetBeans...for some
reason it turned out to be the easiest for me.”

2. NetBeans
finally imports my Eclipse projects
– joconner.com, 11/9
John O'Conner excitedly reported
that NetBeans 6.7.1 was able to import Eclipse projects he does at
his day job, and works with “no errors, no problems.” John was
excited because this compatibility means “I'm going to use NetBeans
again after 2 years away!” He pointed out the bonus is that “the
Java support of the IDE is amazing,” stating “NetBeans does
JavaScript FAR
BETTER than Eclipse does.”

3. NetBeans
Unit Test Creation better than Eclipse? And where should unit test
live?
– beilers.com, 11/9
The blogger, who said he is “kind of tied to Eclipse as
my IDE,” also “plays” with NetBeans and said
he would switch if the IDE had Emacs key bindings. Among the
highlights the blogger said he “especially like the way it
(NetBeans) manages plug-ins,” as well as the way it handles unit
testing by automatically creating a secondary source tree, and the
way libraries are separated.

4. Migrating
to NetBeans Platform 6.8
– launchpad.net/gephi, 11/8
Mathieu Bastian reported
on his trunk code update from NetBeans 6.5 to 6.8 and said “no bug
has been found after migrating,” and also pointed out that “the
retro-compatibility is really satisfying.”

6. Create
a GWT Application from Scratch
– blog.jdevelop.eu, 11/11
The blogger demonstrated
how to create a GWT application for NetBeans in this in-depth
tutorial, as well as how to do so with Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA,
allowing people to choose which IDE to work in.

7. PHP
Remote Debugging with NetBeans 6.8
– roysimkes.net, 11/10
The blogger said
NetBeans 6.8 is “getting better and better,” pointing out that
you can now debug php code with the it, which he demonstrated how to
do in this tutorial.

9. Changing
default Look'n'Feel for NetBeans (and the GUI builder)
– raftaman.net, 11/6
The blogger said “NetBeans'
GUI builder is great,” pointing out that “it's one of the
essential features that made me drop Eclipse.” However, he noted
that designing certain GUIs are difficult because the preview look
and feel on NetBeans may differ from the look and feel of the
application platform. Therefore, he described how to change the
NetBeans look and feel (as well as the GUI builder's look and feel)
in this tutorial.

Thursday Nov 12, 2009

1. My
Development Environment
-– whoneedsactions.com, 11/4
Blogger James Riley said
since starting with NetBeans he has “never looked back.” He noted
that what makes NetBeans his IDE of choice “is its Ruby on Rails
support – being able to carry out all your command line activities
from within the IDE saves me a lot of time.”

2. 15+
Creative Java applications based on NetBeans Platform
-– veerasundar.com, 11/3
The blogger said
NetBeans is more than “just an IDE that helps you to build
Java/PHP/C++ applications,” and stated “there are numerous GUI
applications built upon the NetBeans platform,” 15 of which he
highlighted in this post.

3. Glassfish,
NetBeans and JSF 2.0 Test Drive
–- andygibson.net, 11/2
Andy Gibson has been testing the new NetBeans 6.8 beta
release and said
“feature-wise it is a great product with better tooling for JSF,”
along with other programs but said “while the features are
impressive, NetBeans still seems hindered by performance issues and
some minor bugs,” but said compared with other IDEs, “NetBeans is
a superior product in terms of features.”

4. ZK
3.6.3 with NetBeans 6.8 Beta on GlassFish V3
–- javadude.wordpress.com, 11/6
The blogger, who is using NetBeans 6.8 Beta, was curious
to see whether he could get the latest ZK release to work with
NetBeans 6.8 running on GlassFish, and demonstrated
step-by-step just how to add ZK 3.6.3 to NetBeans to create a
directory for GlassFish in this tutorial.

5. HSQLDB
NetBeans
–- anipossible3.blogspot.com, 11/5
The blogger gave
a step-by-step instructions describing how to configure HSQLDB in
NetBeans in this tutorial.

6. NetBeans
Platform: Implement Perforce client – part IV
–- javasign.blogspot.com, 11/2
The blogger finished up his series on the Perforce client
with the NetBeans platform, to illustrate how it can be implemented
as a versioning client in NetBeans. Specifically, in this tutorial he discussed
how to integrate into Perforce the NetBeans IDE file manipulation
operations to include add, delete, rename, move, or edit using the
NetBeans VCSInterceptor class.

8. Install
iReport Plugins in NetBeans
–- ireport-tutorial.blogspot.com, 11/1
The blogger posted
a screencast tutorial that demonstrates how to install the iReport
plugin in NetBeans, which the blogger said “is the most popular and
top-rated NetBeans plugin.” He said the plugin allows the user to
easily design reports in NetBeans.

10. NetBeans
IDE unboxing and review
-– violarocks.wordpress.com, 10/31
The blogger posted
a video tutorial that shows the unboxing and installation of NetBeans
6.7.1 along with the creation of a simple Java project application in
NetBeans.

11. NetBeans
Refactoring – Part 1
–- significantinsignificance.wordpress.com, 10/30
The blogger published
a tutorial on on refactoring in NetBeans, which he said is “a very
powerful and a personal favorite NetBeans feature.” He described
how the refactoring capabilities available in NetBeans can allow the
user to change source code easily, illustrating and explaining half
of the options available in the refactor menu in this post.

12. Writing
your First Boxee App
-– greatboxee.com, 10/30
The blogger posted
an in-depth step-by-step guide to writing a Boxee app using NetBeans
as an IDE. At the end, he said his experience with NetBeans was “just
OK” noting that “it had the bare minimum of refactorings,
intellisense, and a test runner.”

Monday Jul 20, 2009

eWEEK’s
Jeff Cogswell
reviewed
NetBeans IDE 6.7, concluding that while
NetBeans 6.7 is a .7
release
in name, it “includes so many new features it could rightfully receive
a
full version increment.” Jeff
spent the majority of
his time testing NetBeans’ integration with Project Kenai, a new
feature
he called “one of the biggest improvements.”

The
reviewer, who had in the past experienced frequent difficulties with
“getting a new project installed on a new developer’s
computer,” wrote, “Now, with the NetBeans IDE, you can easily avoid
such problems” by creating a project and uploading it to Kenai.

Jeff
also praised
the ability for developers to access various Project Kenai features
such as
full support for source code repositories directly through the NetBeans
IDE,
“without the need to interact with the site itself.”
He also made special mention of NetBeans’ convenient chat software,
which
he called “pretty handy for communicating with the project members in
real time.”

After
thoroughly testing Kenai integration and running into
very few problems, Jeff offered a final verdict: “All-in-all,
I had a
good experience with the Kenai integration into NetBeans IDE.”

Monday Jun 08, 2009

OpenSolaris
2009.06 received positive hands-on reviews this week, with Phoronix’s
Michael Larabel concluding,
“We have been testing out OpenSolaris 2009.06 this morning and so
far, it looks like a nice update.” Michael also posted
a benchmark review of OpenSolaris 2009.06 compared with OpenSolaris
2008.11, finding improvements across the board.

Engineers
from Intel
and IBM gave rave reviews of both OS’s, with Intel software
engineering manager David Stewart saying,
“Kudos to whomever set up the web infrastructure for day-of-launch
[of OpenSolaris 2009.06]. (I think Intel could learn something from
you guys).” IBM expert Ken Milbert discussed
benefits of Solaris 10, noting it “compares favorably in many ways
to JFS2 from AIX and VxFs from HP.”

JavaFX

JavaFX
1.2 received a strong welcome from developer bloggers this week. The
JavaFX Journey blogger wrote,
“The code is getting better and better…If they keep up these
performance increases, no one will be able to touch them.” Jethro
Grassie echoed this when he said
that the update to JavaFX is “just what I was hoping for and more.”
In regards to specific product features, the blogger of Exploding
Pixels wrote
that he was “happy to see many more UI controls included in this
latest release of JavaFX.”

NetBeans

NetBeans
maintained a strong presence among developers, starting with blogger
Logan
who said,
“Netbeans it's very easy to define your own templates…I've
recently picked up Netbeans 6.7 RC1 and will be actively using it for
my JRuby/Ruby projects.”

Blogger
Wille said,
“When switching to NetBeans I was pleasantly surprised by how its
UI had turned, well, modern.” Finally, another blogger discussed
the top features he found in NetBeans that allowed him to become
“instantly productive.”

Tuesday May 12, 2009

OpenSolaris
and ZFS had blogs buzzing last week, starting off with a look at
OpenSolaris
2009.06 from Phoronix’s
Michael Larabel who called
out several feature improvements. Michael highlighted the Image
Packaging
System, ZFS snapshot time-slider and new desktop artwork, as well as
saying the
new “Firefox package is bleeding edge.”

Blogger
Simon shared an
extensive post
about his experiences using Solaris and ZFS on a home fileserver,
concluding
that he “learnt a lot over the last year about ZFS, and using it has
convinced me that I made the right choice in selecting both Solaris
and
ZFS.”

VirtualBox
2.2 continued to garner positive blogger reviews this week, as Brighthub’s
Steve Mallard gave VirtualBox a 5
out
of 5 rating in his review that said installation was
“straightforward and
easy.” Steve also noted that, “VirtualBox has dozens of options and
features
found in virtualization software that cost hundreds of dollars…the
value of
virtualization cannot be stressed enough.”

Blogger Tom Puleo said he was really
happy with VirtualBox, and “when given the chance, will choose it
over
Virtual PC or VMware.” He said he liked VirtualBox because it is “fast”
and
“great for day to day use.”

Blogger Carl reported
that he has experimented with a lot of virtualization software and had
“come to
like VirtualBox best.” After switching his Windows XP virtual machine
from
VMware to VirtualBox, Carl says “I'm not likely to switch back from
VirtualBox
any time soon.”

NetBeans

NetBeans
6.7 was the focus of several positive reviews this week, with Dean at Grails
Blogsaying
that the
6.7 Beta is a great release for the Grails community. Dean noted,
“NetBeans'
support of Grails functionality is nearly on par with that of IntelliJ
8.1.”

The blogger from cld.blog-city.comstated
that the new release of NetBeans has excellent support for PHP, and
highlighted
key aspects such as syntax highlighting, a navigator, and code folding,
as well
as “nice support for PHP debugging.”

Blogger Brian Silberbauer discussed
how when he’s teaching a course on JEE, he begins with NetBeans. He
noted,
“This is a great help to the students as it gives them the overview of
what we
will be working with and shows them how quick and easy it is to create
a JEE application
in NetBeans - It takes the complexity fear out of them (to a certain
extent).”

Monday May 04, 2009

Blogger Seandiscovered
the
powerful profiling engine in NetBeans, which helped him understand the
memory
usage and consumption of each property, method call and object
instant in his program. Programming
Blogsposted
about integration with Project Kenai in NetBeans 6.7 Beta. Another
Programming Blogs writer
said
the NetBeans IDE provided a Web Services Manager that supported SaaS
applications and it was much easier for Java developers to access all
the
popular SaaS services on the web. Blogger Carl McDadetried many of the FOSS
IDE’s and editors and settled on NetBeans for
erlang development, then provided instructions to set up NetBeans to
get syntax highlighting and debugging with detailed explanations.

OpenOffice.org

The blogger
at
SoftSailorhighlighted
some of the program features in OpenOffice.org
and says the “great advantage” of this suite is that the interface is
similar to MS Office, which makes it easy for a user to “switch
sides” without having to re-adapt to a completely different
environment. Peter Jaquesurged
people to try OpenOffice.org because,
“it's
basically 99% compatible, and I bet you won't need Microsoft at all.
Really!” Blogger Brendan Vittumwrote
a tutorial on how to create a database shell in OpenOffice.org BASE,
saying “users of all levels, novice, intermediate, or expert will
find the collection of Wizards, Design Views, and straight SQL Views
an intuitive means of creating and modifying tables, forms, queries,
and reports.”

MySQL

Despite
some of the concerns floating around the MySQL Conference, Linux
Magazine wrote
there was good news coming out of the event. The article noted the
MySQL developers
stated they will return to a 'release early, release often' schedule,
and the pending 5.4 release has a number of features worth keeping an
eye on. A writer at the MySQL
Performance Blognoted
that he had a chance to take a look at TokuDB and run some
benchmarks. The blogger reported that tuning TokuDB was much easier
than InnoDB, and that there were only a few parameters to change.
Core Security Patterns Weblogdiscussed
how enabling SSL/TLS based MySQL connections ensure trusted
communication between MySQL clients and the database server.

Tuesday Mar 31, 2009

1. NetBeans,
Subversion and Symlinks -- RobertBolton.com, 3/21
Robert Bolton has started using NetBeans for PHP coding and is
generally happy with it. However, some specific behaviors in Subversion
plugins and symlinks are bugging him.

2. Ruby
on Rails IDE for beginners -- Indu's Ecosystem, 3/20
Indudhar Devanath gives a run down of Ruby on Rails IDE's for beginner,
noting good support for RoR in NetBeans. He states that this Java-based
IDE comes bundled with Glassfish V3 Prelude and RoR learning trails
that make it an ideal choice for beginners.

3. Notepad++
for PHP development -- Codingspace.org, 3/20
Arjen de Korte has recently discovered NetBeans and finds it an
"amazing software that has support for PHP code coloring, completion
and step-by-step debugging using xdebug."

4. Or
not aptana /o\\ -- Spoonerisms, 3/20
The blogger notes that NetBeans offers a Ruby-only install that
integrated extremely well into Rails development. "I'm feeling hopeful
about it," he adds.

5. NetBeans
6.7 - I Like Where Things are Going (Initial Impressions) --
Creanium.net, 3/19
John Crean is impressed with the latest version of NetBeans as it
offers greater platform integration and faster accessibility. "Upon
first launch, I noticed the window and all the elements in the
interface had a much better look to them, one more consistent with the
general OS X look-and-feel (specifically 10.5 Leopard)," he notes.

6. The
new NetBeans look on OS X -- There is nothing more deceptive than
an obvious fact!, 3/19
Ranjith Chandran downloads the latest development build of NetBeans and
finds that the UI look on OS X is by far the best he has ever seen in
any Java IDE. "Look-wise it rocks," says Ranjith.

7. NetBeans ahoy --
Meluski.com, 3/18
The blogger uses NetBeans as his primary development tool for PHP
coding and his "mind is blown." He is also happy to notice that apart
from the PHP editor working well with MAMP tools running on a Mac OS
10.4, NetBeans also features support for XDebug, "a handy application"
for debugging.

Friday Mar 13, 2009

1. Switched
to NetBeans from Eclipse IDE -- Now Talking!, 3/10
Louie Miranda tried NetBeans after hearing positive feedback on the
CakePHP mailing list and concluded, "For now, I am saying goodbye to
Eclipse and will be switching to NetBeans!"

2. IDE,
IDE, IDE, the IDE's of
March -- Dante's Journal, 3/9
Dante Daffodil used NetBeans to make tight and portable Java-based web
pages and programs. He liked that NetBeans not only supported C++
applications, but it could also make portable codes.

3. NetBeans
- Working with XML Schemas -- Java Hair, 3/9
While working with XML schemas, Robert Nocera used NetBeans to generate
a Canonical XML Schema and found that because NetBeans provided 3
different views to work with, the conversions were much easier.

4. Creating
Scrollable JDesktopPane on NetBeans -- Sidudun, 3/9
Arif N. used NetBeans for creating a Multiple Document Interface
application, and found it made Swing GUI development "far easier." Arif
also shared the source code of what he developed.

5. NetBeans
as a platform for software -- Miscellaneous notes from BM,
3/9
The blogger evaluated NetBeans as a platform for creating plugins and
applications, and said, "quite nice stuff, technically way better than
Eclipse and overall impression is pleasant."

6. RubyMine,
an IDE for Ruby, Rails and so much more -- The dynamic
programmer, 3/9
The blogger discussed his RubyMine experience, and said, "NetBeans with
Ruby support was the one that provided the best IDE experience so far."
He also included a list of the shared features of RubyMine and NetBeans
that he liked the most.

8. Simple web project
file management -- Delicious robots blog, 3/8
In sharing his file management system for personal files, Stephen A.
said he uses NetBeans 6.7 M2 as his personal IDE and was happy to see
that it offered excellent PHP / HTML support. Stephen included his
source code as well.

9. NetBeans
Eclipse Comparison -- Technology, Architecture and loads of
fun...., 3/7
Senthilkumar Ravindran had low opinions for non-Eclipse IDE's before
using NetBeans 6.5, but found NetBeans was superior in UI, UML
modeling, and greater focus on J2EE environments. He concluded his post
by saying that he looked forward to seeing a "David vs. Goliath fight"
between NetBeans and Eclipse.

10. NetBeans
6.7 M2, PHP and Remote Development -- Kingdom of Roi, 3/5
Roy Buyuksimkesyan liked using NetBeans so much he decided to give up
on other tools - Zend Studio and VI. Roy enjoyed the NetBeans UI and
useability on his Mac, but disappointed it did not have a remote server
explorer and couldn't open files by just browsing the file explorer.

Sunday Feb 22, 2009

1. NetBeans
= Best Maven IDE? -- Java and more, 2/17
Peter Karich showed what is possible with Maven 2.0.9 in NetBeans 6.5
in a step by step tutorial.

2. I
love NetBeans 7! -- Nice
Words, 2/16
The blogger tested a build of NetBeans 7 that according to him was
stable, beautiful and really helped him to get his work done. After
further testing, he commented, "NetBeans 7 is really going to rock!"

3. NetBeans
6.5, JavaFX 1.0, Groovy and arithmetic training --
Kontrawize, 2/15
Anthony Coates strongly suggested the use of NetBeans for JavaFX
development since the IDE offered built-in JavaFX support. He also
updated developers about the availability of a slim version of NetBeans
that offered bits for Java and JavaFX development, though it was much
smaller than the "complete" NetBeans version.

8. The
Big PHP IDE Test: Why Use One And Which To Choose -- Smashing
Magazine, 2/11
The blogger James evaluated popular IDEs and suggested each IDE for
different reasons. James concluded that "both PDT and NetBeans are
good. ... If editing tools and code completion are more important to
you, then pick NetBeans. NetBeans is a bit more responsive, too."

Saturday Feb 14, 2009

1. NetBeans
is Getting Better -- My Open Source Software Development Blog, 2/10
The blogger was writing an article about how to do formatting with
Microlog and discussed his experiences working with Eclipse and
NetBeans. He had been using Eclipse as his predominant IDE but said,
"It is a real shame that after all these years, Eclipse still have
problems when it comes to Java ME development." In the end, he
downloaded the current NetBeans and said, "My first impression is that
NetBeans has matured since the last time I used it."

2. 'Profile Me Now' Feature in
NetBeans 7 Milestone 2 -- Pro NetBeans, 2/10
The New and Noteworthy page for NetBeans 7 Milestone 2 notes a new
feature called 'Profile Me Now' that will soon be added to the IDE --
enabling users to activate the diagnostic tool, perform some action or
set of actions and then deactivate the diagnostic tool. "This will
generate a standard NetBeans Profiler snapshot which can then be
submitted to the NB team for analysis," the blogger concluded.

3. NetBeans
6.5 and Python -- Geeky Blog, 2/9
Jett tried using NetBeans 6.5 as his IDE for developing a Python-based
Google Talk bot program this weekend. Prior to this project, he always
used PyDev plugin for Eclipse. After using NetBeans, Jett found a few
features that appealed to him were syntax highlighting, auto indention,
auto completion and debugging. He concluded, "NetBeans is almost
becoming the default IDE for everything I do in Grails, Python, and the
occasional quick Java POCs."

4. NetBeans
6.5 as a Cute and free IDE for PHP -- Mike Borozdin's Blog,
2/8
Mike Borozdin believed that NetBeans was mostly known for Java
developers as a good and free IDE. He also noted that recently,
NetBeans started supporting other languages, such as C/C++, Ruby and
finally PHP. Mike concluded, "NetBeans has it all. Furthermore, it works
greatly with JavaScript that was a quite a surprise for me after a
while working with Eclipse."

5. NetBeans
6.5 - my number one PHP IDE -- Juozas devBlog, 2/8
The blogger was inspired to try NetBeans after reading several articles
about it. He liked how NetBeans offered integrated SVN support,
projects, debugging Windows/Linux support, and more. He said he
disliked the lack of integrated project synchronization over FTP and
slow processing with large projects, but concluded, "Overall it's just
a wonderful tool - stable, helpful and being actively developed. Give
it a try!"

Sunday Feb 08, 2009

1. NetBeans's
new Python type inferencing -- Andreas Jacobsen's Distraction, 1/31
Andreas Jacobsen has some interesting thoughts on what an IDE should
and should not do for him. He picked NetBeans' auto-completion feature
that added a type of annotation to function/method parameters in Python
to illustrate his thought process.

2. NetBeans
vs. Eclipse -- 1500 Hours, 1/28
Chiun Lin was initially disappointed to see that the GUI tutorial he
found used the NetBeans IDE instead of Eclipse, since he had already
downloaded Eclipse. However, after further investigation, Chiun
discovered that NetBeans was actually a better IDE for implementing GUI
in Java. After trying it out, he concluded, "NetBeans' GUI builder is
so good I wish I had such a good builder when I was coding my MEng
project. The drag and drop visual builder would have made my life
easier and made my project look prettier."

3. Why I Switched from Eclipse PDT
to NetBeans IDE -- 2 Tablespoons, 1/28
Chad Kieffer had started a post highlighting the recent Eclipse PDT 2.0
release, but very soon found himself dropping the post and the Eclipse
IDE altogether. He cited various reasons for this change; the most
important one being the inability of Eclipse's JSDT plugins to support
today's popular JavaScript frameworks, including dojo, jQuery, and YUI.
Chad praised NetBeans, noting, "I'm impressed, particularly since this
is the first NetBeans release to support PHP editing. NetBeans came
with everything I needed out of the box."

Monday Feb 02, 2009

1. NetBeans
IDE Delivers For C/C++ Development -- All In A Day's Work, 1/25
After a search and test of various compilers, debuggers, make utilities
and editors, blogger Jubz N'Djamena believed that NetBeans 6.5 IDE
delivered best in a centralized integrated environment. He noted that
Sun had built a separate NetBeans IDE for C/C++ development that quite
nicely integrated with Cygwin tools. Jubz commented,"It can't be easier
than this," and called NetBeans "quick, intuitive and straightforward."

2. My
latest addiction -- Joseph Sniderman, 1/25
Joseph Sniderman begins by declaring, "NetBeans. I'm hooked. I admit
it." Following the recommendations of a recently purchased book on Java
development, Joseph installed NetBeans and fell in love. He is using
the IDE to develop a web application that could be used by a diner or
small restaurant to track sales.

3. NetBeans for C++?
-- Susheel's Blog, 1/24
Blogger Susheel is using NetBeans primarily for C++ development. He
found the IDE "solidly built" and easy to navigate with "clean and
sweet" interface. He added that not only did NetBeans run smoothly, but
also boasted "excellent fast code completion features." He enjoyed the
intellisense feature, and noted that the real-time syntax checker also
deserved praise. In the end, Susheel was extremely impressed.

4. NetBeans
revisited: Code Completion for Code-igniter -- My Beloved PHP, 1/23
The blogger found NetBeans a different kind of software. "Netbeans 6.5
is good software, out of the box it offers code completion and
validation for PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript including JQuery and
Mootools," he noted. He added that NetBeans also let users easily
implement CodeIgniter powers, which offers code completion for native
Active record classes, libraries and helper functions.

5. Extremely
Useful NetBeans Shortcuts -- PHP Magazine, 1/23
Victor Farazdagi had been solely relying on NetBeans for PHP and Java
coding, and was absolutely delighted with its performance. He
exclaimed, "So far, it's beyond my wildest expectations. I am totally
satisfied with that great IDE." Victor was pleased to discover several
time-saving keyboard shortcuts, and was inspired to share several of
his own shortcuts.

Monday Jan 26, 2009

1. PHP and
NetBeans! -- Thinking Me!, 1/18
Muhammad Usman had tried using various IDEs to get PHP driven web
applications germinated. After using Eclipse for about 2 months,
Muhammad stumbled across NetBeans and realized that it was far better
than Eclipse. His favorite feature are intelliSense, project and task
management, remote project development, function help, smarty syntax
support and integrated database query editor.

2. NetBeans
IDE feature I would
like to see inside Visual Studio -- A Developer On A Few Platforms,
1/17
Andrew Rea opened his post declaring "NetBeans is my IDE of choice at
the moment for my Java development." He stated that there were two
features that he wished would be included in Visual Studio out of the
box; namely the ability to encapsulate a selection of fields or the
ability to select the fields users would like to encapsulate inside a
GUI Dialog.

3. Developing
with NetBeans IDE -- Useful Ubuntu, 1/15
The blogger, an avid developer, had tried out many IDEs. He likes
NetBeans the most because he can continue working on his program edits
in NetBeans regardless of the OS he was using. He used NetBeans
on Windows, Mac and Linux, and cross-platform support of NetBeans got a
big plus in his book.

4. NetBeans
6.5 review from a PHP hack -- Unix Admin Corner, 1/14
NetBeans 6.5 made a big appeal to James with its excellent PHP support.
Though James asserted that NetBeans needed some nips and tucks here and
there, he really enjoyed the CSS module and the PHP editor since they
both helped him find bugs that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.
James liked quite a lot of other features in NetBeans including
integration of the database explorer, jMaki, the variable/function auto
completion option in PHP mode, and the HTML preview mode among others.
He wrote, "I do highly recommend that all PHP coders give it a try."

5. A
new PHP IDE rolls into town - NetBeans -- Mad PPC, 1/13
Brad was pleasantly surprised to see that NetBeans now not only
supported PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Groovy and Python, but also boasted
great HTML support. He wrote, "This IDE has the makings of something
great, it's free, and it supports the syntax of many languages." He
went on to compare NetBeans with Zend IDE 5.5, and concluded that
NetBeans "won hands down."

6. Kudos
To The NetBeans Team -- Simon's Blog, 1/12
Simon Brocklehurst congratulated the NetBeans team for the fabulous
work they had done on the NetBeans IDE. He loved NetBeans for its
ability to provide a fantastic integrated environment for writing all
programming and mark-up code, and for rapid deployment of services to
the test environment. He noted that NetBeans handles multiple
programming languages and system services easily, which is the highest
test of efficiency for any IDE. Praising NetBeans Simon exclaimed,
"It's seriously impressive. I recommend it highly."

Wednesday Jan 21, 2009

Peter Wu
from Windows Livenoted
that
the Nimbus theme "looks really fantastic"
and that the ZFS file system was "rock solid!"

A blogger from Linux-Hardcoretested
OpenSolaris 2008.11 and said he
"felt honored to write a review." He wrote, "It's a system that works,
even there are some compatibility issues which, according to the
designers and developers, is in progressive solution." Calling it
"clean, neat, nice, and well done," he stated that the OS looked very
promising, and went on to congratulate its developers.

VirtualBox

InfoWorld's
David Marshall discussed
the new features of VirtualBox 2.1, noting
that "despite the version numbering, this update doesn't appear to be a
minor dot release of features, updates, and fixes. Instead, the product
offers quite a few new enhancements." David summarized Sun's work with
VirtualBox by saying, "with an impressive 25,000 downloads a day, and
downloads up 120 percent over last quarter, Sun seems to be doing a
good job at breaking through the noise of the desktop virtualization
market."

Hawkins Dalewrote that
he used VirtualBox at work to run a relatively
bulletproof Ubuntu install on his Windows laptop, and at home to run
Windows XP on his Mac. He stated, "I love it."

A blogger from ghosTunix.orgstated
that VirtualBox is one of the best
virtualization products for x86 machines, noting that was "extremely
feature rich" and available in an Open Source Edition.

NetBeans

NetBeans
received endorsements from several developer blogs, including a
developer who was impressed
with the ability to successfully manage
USB, seamless mode, and networking all within VirtualBox.

The blogger from Panda and Python
and Me (oh my!) was also impressed, noting
that NetBeans "kicked the trash" out of its competitor
Eclipse. He concluded by saying "Wouldn't Eclipse benefit from an
easier interface that acted a little more smartly? I declare that
NetBeans has done just that."

OpenOffice.org

A blogger
from Downloadsdescribed
OpenOffice 3.0 as the result of over 20 years of software engineering,
and its consistency could not be matched by any other product.

Jonathan from Teacher Meets Linux
was especially impressed
by the new Math Interface, and described the
software as a "great GNU alternative."

Monday Jan 19, 2009

This year
Sun has won
6 out of the 12 categories in Developer.com's 2009 Product of the Year
awards.

MySQL workbench won the Database Tool
categoty, rest was NetBeans all
the way!!!

NetBeans Platform is the best Development Tool,
NetBeans Profiler is the best Development Utility,
NetBeans IDE is the best Java Tool,
NetBeans Mobility Pack for Connected Device Configuration (CDC) 5.5 is
the winner in Wireless/Mobile
category and NetBeans is the best Open Source
software for developers.

The award article noted, "It is
worth noting that in the past Sun has been able to dominate many
categories, but it took multiple products to achieve that distinction.
This year one product, NetBeans, dominated the categories by winning
five out of twelve."